Help! My Child Is Stuck in a Behavior
We can feel helpless to stand by and watch our child who is stuck in a rigid behavior. Often we are left wondering what could be done to help alleviate our child's discomfort.
Often, parents ask me, “Can you give some insights or tell me what to do when my child is stuck in a rigid behavior, has echolalia, isn't using expressive language, or is running away?”
Below is my answer plus some additional support from two of the amazing autism specialist doctors featured in my past Autism Recovery Summits.
“I see these as signs of toxicity, poor methylation, not enough nutrients, other biochemistry not functioning in the cells. B vitamins, fish oil, and Vitamins D, A, E, C are important. Minerals can be game changers, particularly zinc for picky eaters. Elimination of food colors, dyes, flavorings, MSG, soy, corn, eggs, gluten, and dairy can also create big changes. Give your child something with food coloring and watch the results. You won’t want to give it again!”
– Luminara Serdar, BS, MBA, NMT
The expert doctors below are amazing, each having their perspectives and tips. Doctors are required to see their patients in person. If you cannot get to one of the doctors below due to physical distance or a long waiting list, feel free to reach out. I'll do my best to help guide you to shift your child's behaviors!
While I am not a medical doctor, I do look holistically at why the behaviors are there and help shift behaviors with nutrition, opening up the body's systems so built-up stressors, like toxicity, flows out.
“So many of our kids have amazing receptive language… Our society gauges intelligence based on what comes out of your mouth but we know our kids are smart! They do well academically; the steps of language include repetition, scripting, and then conversational language and a lot of this is a speech delay or it has to do with imbalances in brain chemistry. That imbalance and brain chemistry whether it be serotonin, whether it be dopamine is going to have different emotional symptoms in kids who are rigid… So if we balance the brain chemistry we balance them happy.”
– Dr. Jared Skowron, CT, USA
"So this is probably the toughest question for me because there are so many things that can lead to this. You know finding the key to unlock your child, you see these little glimpses that they're there, you see the spark in their eye every once in a while you know they're in there. So, I would say the stuck in rigid behaviors, this whole category, when they're stuck they're not able to express, they're in their own world. They're not really connecting. This, for me, is usually a sign of a methylation issue; so we really need to push those methyl donors, especially methyl B12. I do find that the shots are very helpful and that's where some of these other factors come in like magnesium, zinc, and B6… Maybe your child is a little slower to grow; they're smaller than their siblings; their muscle tone is lower than you would expect for their age; they're just always tired all the time. I'm thinking it's probably some mitochondrial needs."
"The rigid behaviors – again it can be if that gut flora is really out of balance. The one thing I didn't mention before, is the OCD-type behavior. These cycles that your child gets into, you know there's a routine they have to do before they leave the house. And it can be very limiting. Or some of the motor tics that can come: the throat clearing, eye twitching, some of those things; You've really got to be thinking strep. A lot of times what we find is these strep bugs either are living in the gut or living in the sinuses or maybe back in the tonsular tissue that you just can't swab and that tends to cause a lot of this OCD-type behavior and these obsessive patterns.”
– Dr. Amy Derksen, WA, USA
Next Steps
A stuck child is often a body asking for nutrients, a calmer gut and an easier way to clear toxins.
The Transforming Autism Jumpstart Program gives you those first steps in order, with a coaching call and the members-only Forum to guide you.
Read the 6th blog post in this series: The #1 Go-to for Constipation
